Page 28 of Prey for You

She frowned deeply, I held her gaze. “Bridge…Iwas that guy. And I’m forgiven. He changed meafterHe forgave me. My point is, we aren’t dealing with some deranged guy with a god complex. We’re dealing with a bigger, stronger, morepowerful heart and mind. God knows things we don’t. And He loved us so much He gave up his perfect son to serve my time for me. If He asks me to go back to prison…” I trailed off, blowing off a breath. “It would be hard, Bridget. I won’t deny I’m praying that doesn’t happen. But I already told you, and I meant it: It took all this to get you and me to this place together. So if it takes that to get us through the other end… I’m in.”

“But you don’t know!” she insisted, her frown deepening. “You won’t know until the end if he wants us out, right? He doesn’t like, give you signs, or appear, or whatever?”

“Not usually. But… He brought us together against all odds. I don’t think he did that to tear us apart again.”

“People get torn apart every day,” she muttered. And I saw her mind ticking back, diving back into all that darkness and death that had haunted her.

I grabbed her face and made her meet my eyes. “Don’t go dark on me now,” I muttered a little harder than I’d intended. But she blinked and some of the shadows in her eyes faded.“Good girl.”

Her pupils dilated when I growled the words, and my heart beat faster. “I want you to stop dwelling on this. It sucks. It sucks for both of us. But let’s not focus on that. You focus on me.”

She smiled, but her eyes welled. I held her face and kept talking, because if I pulled her into my lap we weren’t talking anymore.

“Now, listen to me,” I instructed. “One way or another, we’re going to get through this. Time will keep passing. The trial will happen. And eventually we’ll get to the end of it. I think we’re coming out of this together.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said quietly.

I traced her lower lip with my thumb.

“We’ve got two more days until we have to be back in Oregon, so let’s focus on making the best of this time now. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. We can’t change that yet. While we have this time, let’s make the most of it.”

She blinked away the gathering tears and sighed. “Okay.”

I leaned in because I knew she was only appeasing me, but I also knew that words weren’t going to change her mindtonight. So I kissed her instead, holding her jaw so she couldn’t escape me.

It started sweet—I wanted to comfort her. Distract her. Soothe the fear.

But she gripped my wrists and returned the kiss with desperation, so instead of pulling out of it to check on her, I tipped my head and deepened the kiss, then pulled her into my lap. When she was in the circle of my arms, slid my hands into her wet hair and took a grip to pull her chin back.

I forgot the conversation. Forgot her tears. Forgot everything but her wet, flushed skin and the water trickling down it.

I kissed the drops from her collarbones, then the ones that wanted to slide down her breasts.

When she started to pant and writhe against me, I knew it wouldn’t be long. And I also knew I had to make sure she wasn’t deflecting.

So, still holding her head back by her hair, I lifted my head and waited for her to open her eyes and meet mine.

“I love you now. And I’ll love you tomorrow,” I rasped, my voice deeper and rougher with need. “No matter what happens, if you need toshower,you tell me so I can come with you.”

Eyes still flickering with fear, she gave a quick little nod and put a hand to my chest. But then she smiled and ground down on me, sliding her hand into the hair at the nape of my neck.

When I groaned and let my head sink back, she leaned in, her lips brushing my ear.

“Literally,” she quipped.

I laughed—but things got very serious, very quickly after that and I gave her all my focus. No matter how sure I might be that God would get us through this, that didn’t mean I’d take for granted the joy of having her in my hands. Because she’d been right about one part: Peopledidget torn apart every day. And if it was going to happen to us, I was making sure we had alotof memories to hold onto until we were together again.

10. Say More

~ BRIDGET ~

The rental car was an automatic, so I didn’t have much to do with my hands on the drive back home. Both of us were quiet. We’d had to get up early—after being up most of the night. I said screw it and stopped at a Dutch Bros for coffee on the way out of town. Except, instead of waking me up, it made me jittery.

Sam’s silence wasn’t helping.

Except, I wasn’t talking either. We’d made the plan in the dark of the night, our bodies languid and spent, tangled together in the sheets.

I had to be at Gerald’s office by two, which meant dropping Sam off by one.

---